Involvement Information

Co-production has been defined ‘as a way of working that involves people who use health and care services, carers and communities in equal partnership and involved at the earliest stages of service design, development and evaluation. Done well, co-production helps to ground discussions in reality, and to maintain a person-centred perspective’. (Coalition for Collaborative Care). Co-production shifts power towards people and can best be achieved with people, through equal and reciprocal relationships. Co-production is the pinnacle of involvement.

“Connecting and Realising Value Through People” is the new Co-production Guide for Northern Ireland which was launched by the Department of Health on 31 August 2018.

A model for co-production, developed by the Coalition for Collaborative Care and its partners, provides a useful overview of co-production.

Check out some of the methods to co-produce below.

• Consensus building/dialogue
• Formalised involvement on strategic groups
• Future search
• Participatory appraisal
• Participatory strategic planning
• Steering groups
• Workshop

Co-design focuses on sharing decision-making power with people and working in partnership to understand and improve patients’ experiences of services as well as the services themselves. It involves sharing decisions with people to design a new service or undertake a change to a service. This means that people’s voices must be heard, valued, debated, and then – most importantly – acted upon (New Economics Foundation).

Some of the methods to co-design are listed below.

• Appreciative inquiry
• Community planning
• Task and finish/Project group

Engaging is seen as involving people within parameters which are set by health professionals. At this level, services are often designed by professionals with the recipient’s best interests in mind, but people’s involvement in the design and delivery of the services is constrained. People are only invited to be heard and not given the power to make sure that their ideas or opinions shape decision-making (New Economics Foundation).

Engaging also includes consultation, which is a process to gain the public’s input on matters affecting them. This usually includes a range of options already developed and the public are engaged to share their views.

Some of the methods to engage people are listed below.

• Citizen Assembly
• Citizens’ juries
• Consensus conference
• Consultations
• Deliberative mapping
• Deliberative polling
• Democs (Deliberative meetings of citizens)
• Electronic engagement
• Focus group
• One to one interview

Check out the key steps to getting started which will help you develop an involvement plan to clearly outline why you are involving and how you will undertake this work. The range of involvement tools will help you determine how to involve people and may be accessed here.